My dad likes to collect things. Coins, stamps, Dinky toys, bottles (I kid you not, my sister Nikki will confirm that as children we did indeed spend one Saturday afternoon scavenging around a rubbish dump for old bottles). I am not quite as bad (although Mum and Dad may disagree as they are currently storing […]

There is no denying that the Americans know how to give good service. The cliched “have a nice day” has made way for the more ambiguous “you have a god one” (day, life, motion…you chose). Sometimes I’m charmed by this and immediately fall in love with my server and really believe that they care for […]

The comedian/actor and all round clever dick Stephen Fry once commented that shell suits we’re the greatest leveller of class. From High Court Judges to chavs, everybody looks equally as bad. the same can be said for baseball caps. I always think a baseball cap on a man of a certain age looks undignified, but […]

America was designed to be driven across, down, diagonally however you want to do it, America is a driving paradise. Big cars, big roads, big fuel bills. On the first day we got the car I began faffing with the on board computer (Karen would refer to it as faffing, I prefer “familiarising myself with […]

Apologies for not blogging yesterday. We set off from Buellton in the Santa Ynez valley yesterday morning travelled via an outlet village (deep joy) and spent the afternoon on Santa Monica Beach. We set of for our hotel (on Sunset) but we put the wrong address in and ended up at the wrong hotel, hence […]

I love telly. And radio. And newspapers. And films. Basically I like the media and wherever I am in the world I try and absorb as much of the local media as I can. The advantage with American media is that I can understand it (I do watch Spanish TV and just try and guess […]

I’ve always been a bit snobby about the American language. I’ve thought it as being a bit lazy. I’m starting to change my mind. it’s actually quite efficient. Think about it, the main difference to the Queen’s English (not that any of ever speak like the queen…or she us) is that; they remove any unnecessary […]

I’m writing this sat in Monterey (home of the cheese) but we have spent most of the day in San Jose. Now before today all I really knew about it was Dionne Warwick needed directions there (presumably she didn’t have a sat nav or knew about google maps). Today we went to the science museum […]

Tonight we went to our first game of real live baseball. Now for those of you who don’t know much about it it’s the US’s 4 th most popular sport after football (American, not soccer), basketball and shooting people. I only realised tonight how similar it is to cricket. Now before the cricket purists start […]

Ok, I’ve got a confession. I’m a transport geek. There, I’ve said it. My name is Andrew and I like trains, trams and trolley buses. I mention this now as today I have been in transport geek heaven. San Francisco has a lot of ways of getting around (or transit as they seem to call […]

America is big. Americans are big. They like food. We like food. So after two weeks here I fear we will leave much larger than when we arrived. Today we decided to try and avoid this and be more sensible in my eating. We started with breakfast ( as over here, it’s also the first […]

We eventually arrived at our hotel after nearly 24 hours travel. The redwood Inn is a typical American motel type run by a lovey friendly Chinese family but you wouldn’t be surprised if you found a dead body in the back stairs. The clientele appears to be similar to us (cheap skates, or as I […]

Well at last we are off. Tried to check in online to discover we had been upgraded to World Traveller Plus (which apparently means we get proper cutlery and a hot towel. Some people will have paid a lot for that. Not us though, oh no). The only problem is that we were ineligible to […]

Hello all. This is mine and Karens blog to keep you in touch when we are away in California. Hopefully it will be witty, interesting and insightful. Speak soon. A & K.